NEW YORK — Adam Jacobs is an actor with a wide smile and a lot on his plate.

He is about to star in the title role of a new Disney show,
Aladdin, on Broadway. He will also soon be a new father — of twins.

“It’s going to be a big year,” he said. “It’s just mind-boggling to me how everything is working
out right now.”

His wife, fellow Broadway veteran Kelly Jacobs, is just a few weeks from delivering twin boys.
Aladdin will start performances on Feb. 26 at the New Amsterdam Theatre.

Jacobs has paid his dues since graduating from New York University — including singing on cruise
ships, being a Broadway replacement for Simba in
The Lion King and Marius in
Les Miserables, and being part of four national tours.

“It was grueling,” he said. “I got to learn all the tricks of making Top Ramen in the
coffeepots.”

Now he’s the star of a new show that he helped create from the ground up.

“To be able to take a character and really make it your own was one of my dreams I always wanted
to do as an actor,” he says. “Now, I’m getting to do it, so it’s pretty cool.”

He is joined by James Monroe Iglehart as the Genie, Courtney Reed as Jasmine and Jonathan
Freeman as Jafar.

All were part of the show’s out-of-town tryout in Toronto.

Aladdin, based on the 1992 animated movie, is directed and choreographed by Tony award
winner Casey Nicholaw.

Jacobs was raised near San Francisco in Half Moon Bay, the son of a Filipino mother and a Jewish
father of Polish and Russian descent.

His younger sister, Arielle Jacobs, is also a rising musical-theater star, with a Broadway
credit for
In the Heights.

He studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music for eight years and flirted with the idea
of becoming a concert pianist. His love of soccer and a desire to be a “normal” kid won out.

He fell in love with musical theater after seeing Filipino-American actor and singer Paolo
Montalban on tour as the Prince in
Cinderella.